![]() Harper metaphorically compares them with “tyrants”. They are busy selling those innocent kids for gold. If a mother cannot bear the pain of her child’s little pains, how can she control herself if someone is taking her child away for selling? The slavers noticed their pain but avoided it. Here, the tears are compared to a stream that flows ceaselessly.īut why are they crying? The second line gives the answer. That’s why Harper uses the metaphor of “streaming eyes”. It seems as if their tears will not ever stop. So, there are not only young girls but also some mothers standing. In the second stanza, Harper depicts what is the mental condition of the mothers. This scene was common among slaves held captive at a young age and denied freedom. Such a state of those girls revealed their anguish and distress. Harper hints at this pain by “deep despair”. There is hidden pain inside their heart that is stifling their breath, thus they are suffocating inside. ![]() It means the girls could not even cry forcefully. Their “stifled sobs” remembers the speaker of some despair. ![]() The slavers have already made them wretched. They don’t have any defense neither they are in a condition to protest. These two quoted words describe their state. What is going on in their minds? According to the poet, they are “defenseless” in their “wretchedness”. They can see some young girls are standing there, waiting to be sold. The introduction of the poem takes readers to a scene where slaves are auctioned. Synecdoche: It occurs in the following lines: “And wept above their lifeless clay” and “Know not the anguish of that breast“.įrances Harper’s ‘The Slave Auction’ begins directly.The phrase “Maker’s hand” is an implicit reference to God, the creator. Metaphor: In the line “While tyrants bartered them for gold,” “tyrant” is a metaphor for a slaver.Anaphora: “ And mothers stood, with streaming eyes,/ And saw their dearest children sold”.Hyperbole: These hyperbolic lines “Whose stifled sobs of deep despair” and “With anguish none may paint or tell” emphasize the suffering of the blacks.Specifically, they can find this device in “ stifled sobs” and “ deep despair”. Alliteration: Readers can find the repetition of the “s” sound in the first stanza.In ‘The Slave Auction,’ readers can find the following literary devices. For example: “The sale/ be- gan/-young girls/ were there.” Readers can put stress on both the syllables of the third foot. It means each line consists of four iambs. Regarding the meter, this poem is written in iambic tetrameter. This regularity in the rhyme scheme creates an ironic effect in this poem. For example, in the first stanza, “there” rhymes with “despair” and “wretchedness” rhymes with “distress”. The rhyme scheme of this piece is ABAB and it is maintained throughout. Each quatrain contains four alternative rhyming lines. Harper’s poem consists of six quatrains or stanzas having four lines. ![]() Lastly, Harper remarks none can understand their pain unless they are standing in a similar situation. Men and children who gathered on that cursed auction thought their hue was responsible for their suffering. They were remembering their past memories. Not only that, even some of them are experiencing the pain of losing their husbands. Some black mothers were grieving as their little ones were bartered for mere “gold”. There were young women who were in shame and distress for the happenings with them as well as others of their community. She was surrounded by black women whose children and husbands were being sold there. This poem depicts how it feels to be in a slave auction. ‘The Slave Auction’ by Frances Harper describes the scene of a slave auction where women lose their loved ones and the speaker’s realization after watching the scene.
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